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<title>the goddaughter by CeruleanTactician</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411646">the goddaughter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeruleanTactician/pseuds/CeruleanTactician'>CeruleanTactician</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Godfather (1972 1974 1990), The Godfather - Mario Puzo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Gen, POV Female Character, POV Minor Character, Period-Typical Sexism, canon violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:20:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,475</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411646</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeruleanTactician/pseuds/CeruleanTactician</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When her father goes to Don Corleone for justice, it is not justice for her, of course. It is about her, but it is not <em>for</em> her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maria Bonasera &amp; Amerigo Bonasera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the goddaughter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Kevin had asked her to sneak out for a late night date, Maria had known that it would upset her parents. That was, in all honesty, part of the reason why she did it. She loved her parents, but she loved Kevin, too. And so many things upset her parents—her parents, who were so afraid of her becoming too American, of losing her virtue before marriage. She had wanted to ask them, <em>why did you come to America if you were so afraid of your daughter becoming American</em>?</p><p>That was unfair, Maria knew. Her parents were hardly the strictest out of all she knew, even just counting the Italian parents. She was lucky that she went to a co-ed high school, that she could openly go out with Kevin if he brought her back within two hours, always before sundown. Her father was proud, she knew—proud to own his own business, that he’d built on his own. Proud not to associate with the criminal element that had made some people in their neighborhood very rich. He did not truly care about his daughter becoming American—he was proud to be American, after all—as long as she was a virtuous American.</p><p>It was already dark when she snuck out. Maria had leaned out of the window of Kevin’s new car, giggling like a madwoman. Jerry laughed at her, which just made her laugh harder. They were all drunk by then. She’d tell her father and the police later that they made her drink, that she hadn’t wanted to touch the stuff, but that wasn’t true. She had wanted to drink at first, and she did. The night had been fun right up until the moment when Kevin asked her to take her shirt off and she said she wasn’t ready for that, especially not with Jerry here—</p><p>What Maria remembers most about the attack, after, is that her refusals, demure and increasingly scared, were funny to them. They both laughed, right up until the moment Kevin got impatient. Or maybe he was embarrassed in front of Jerry. And then they got angry. Human beings alone can do terrible things, but what one must really be afraid of is what they do together.</p><p>The aftermath might have been the worst part. It was what she had nightmares about the most. It was so dark, and Maria had been so alone and so afraid. After they drove away, after she could walk again, she walked alone along the road, hiding from any car she saw because she was too afraid to hitchhike. The nearest gas station was open that late. The clerk had audibly gasped when he saw her. She’d gotten blood on his floor.</p><p>In the hospital, all her friends came, except for the ones who turned out to be more Jerry and Kevin’s friends. She noticed the way they stared at her face, the way they all stopped coming after the first visit. Maria’s godmother, Signora Corleone, sends her pink flowers and a box of chocolates that she lets melt in her mouth because her jaw isn’t healed enough to chew. She hadn’t even known before the attack that she had a godmother.</p><p>Of course, her parents visited her everyday. They were the first ones she told about what happened, before the police or her girlfriends or her priest or anybody. Her mother had cried. Her father had turned increasingly pale. All he asked her was if she “kept her honor”.</p><p>Maria had said yes. He hugged her after that, and comforted her, but she would always remember that that was the first thing he had asked her.</p>
<hr/><p>She could walk again by the time of the trial. She wore her best clothes and an army’s worth of makeup to cover up what they’d done to her face and did not look Jerry in the eyes. Maria only faltered with Kevin once. She had hoped he would somehow look monstrous now that his true nature was revealed, like in a fairy tale, but he was exactly the same.</p><p>She wins. Then they get suspended sentences. She grieves in her own way. Her mother does too. So does her father. Maria hadn’t asked for him to do it. She hadn’t wanted him to do it. But he hears that Connie Corleone is getting married—</p><p>When he goes to Don Corleone for justice, it is not justice for her, of course. It is about her, but it is not <em>for</em> her.</p><p>He returns from Connie's wedding looking pale and haggard, and she watches him drink for the first time in her life. It is like that for months—her father, so terrified of what he has brought upon himself and his family. Every time she sees him, he looks worse, for they all know that he has made a deal with the devil. </p><p>But Don Corleone, Maria thinks bitterly, is not the devil. He is not an abstract figure of temptation and evil their priest warns about on Sundays, who Maria doesn’t even really believe in anymore. Don Corleone is a real man, he is her godmother’s husband, and her father’s profession as an undertaker will be useful to him.</p><p>Kevin and Jerry end up in the hospital, legs broken. Jaws broken. She won’t lie—it was satisfying, to hear what happened to them. They’ll have to learn how to walk again. No more sports scholarships for them. It won’t just be their faces will bear the marks of the assault for the rest of their lives. From what she hears, Jerry will walk with a limp for the rest of his life.</p>
<hr/><p>Maria doesn’t go back to school. She is sent to stay with her widowed aunt Rosaria in Boston. Rosaria is her mother's sister, and she works part time at a dressmaker’s and lives off the salary and of her late husband’s military pension. </p><p>“You’re too skinny,” Rosaria says. It is the first time she’s seen her since the attack. “Look at you—all skin and bones! Here—I’ll cook you something, go sit down.”</p><p>Rosaria can be a harsh woman, but she is not unkind. She doesn’t let Maria stay in bed until the afternoon anymore. She becomes her aunt’s companion. They cook and go shopping together, though Maria usually wears sunglasses and a scarf when they go out.</p><p>But gradually, she gets used to this. Maria sews, she reads, and eventually she stops being surprised by her reflection every time she encounters a mirror. She still cries most days, but she is glad to be away from it all—from the girlfriends who can’t understand what happened to her, or worse, the ones who took Kevin and Jerry’s side. From her school friends who stared at her with such pity. But if time doesn't heal, it does blunt the pain. Gradually, Maria hides her face less, and Rosaria asks her if she wants to enroll in school next fall. She says that she will think about it. The other women in Rosaria’s neighborhood get used to her face after a few weeks. </p><p>Rosaria was widowed early into her marriage, before she’d had children, and in her grief she swore off marrying again. And she hasn't seemed to regret that decision. Maria sees Rosaria’s life, and she thinks it would not be such a bad life. She is still getting used to the idea, though. She knows that will never be beautiful again, but that is something that bothers at her less as time goes on. Maria knows she probably won't ever be able to find a husband and get married—not with her face like this, not when merely the thought of being with a man turns her stomach—but she had always thought she would, and that still takes adjustment. Maria had always thought that she and her husband would run the mortuary, but from what she hears, it’s going to go to one of her cousins.</p>
<hr/><p>She still visits her parents every other week. One week, when Rosaria drives her down, her father is called away to the mortuary very late in the night. No one had said anything, but they all knew who had called by the way her father had crossed himself while talking on the phone, all while trying to keep his voice calm. He doesn’t return until early the following morning, but when he does, there is relief on his face. The deal is, apparently, complete.</p><p>Maria never asks him what he had to do in return for his justice. Maybe it is a misplaced sense of guilt for something she had never asked for, but she truly doesn’t want to know. But whatever it is that her father did for him, she never hears him say a bad word about Don Corleone again.</p>
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